A machine may include a conveyor system for receiving material from a source in a hopper and then transferring the material to a predetermined destination. For example, when building roadways, paving machines may be used to deposit significant amounts of paving material. A conveyor system on a paver transfers the paving material from the paver hopper for discharge onto the roadbed. A typical paving material includes asphalt or asphalt concrete.
An asphalt paver at the construction site is generally a state-of-the-art self-propelled construction machine designed to receive, convey, distribute, profile and partially compact the asphalt material. The paver accepts the asphalt material into a receiving hopper at the front of the machine, conveys the material from the hopper to the rear of the machine with parallel slat conveyors, distributes the asphalt material along the width of an intended ribbon or mat by means of two opposing screw or spreading conveyors, and profiles and compacts the asphalt material into a mat with a free-floating screed.
Each slat conveyor that moves the asphalt material from the receiving hopper to the rear of the paving machine generally consists of two parallel slat chains with a multitude of transverse slats connected therebetween. Each slat chain is pulled by one of two sprockets mounted on a common shaft which, in turn, is driven by appropriate power transmission chains, gear boxes or the like.
Asphalt itself is usually a black and highly viscous liquid or semi-solid. It is present in most crude petroleums and in some natural deposits. When used in road construction, asphalt usually functions as a binder for a gravel or rock base. The raw material mixture is referred to as a “bituminous aggregate,” and the finished road surfacing material is usually called “asphalt concrete.” The bituminous aggregate is typically stored and transported at temperatures around 150° C. to prevent hardening. Thus, the asphalt material conveyor system needs to withstand the high-temperature and rough gravel or rock particles bound within the aggregate the mix is being dumped into the hopper, and more particularly, as the abrasive mix moves through the conveyor system. It is also desirable to have a conveyor system with features that facilitate the transfer of the molten aggregate material from the hopper to the roadbed to minimize the amount of leftover asphalt material (which forms cold asphalt build-up) in the conveyor system.
U.S. Pat. No. 3,453,939 describes two conveyors on a paver that are separated by a horizontal wall and paving material is confined thereon by shield plates inclined downwardly from the side walls and a divider wall between the two conveyors. The shield plates appear to protect the side walls and the divider walls from the paving material. But it is not clear whether or how these shield plates can be readily or individually removed when repair or replacement is needed.
For other conveyor systems, it may also be desirable to include a shield or guard system to protect certain parts of the conveyor systems from the bulk material they are designed to transfer.
The present disclosure is directed to addressing one or more needs discussed above.